Monday, October 15, 2012

Riffing on Ayn Rand

That damn motion picture has given me "objectivism on the brain"....
More and more I am given to think that the sheer downfall of Ayn Rand can be traced back to her reflexive hatred of academics & intellectuals. The whole subtext of "Atlas Shrugged" (regardless of Dagny Taggart's quest to mate with some species of heavy machinery) reeks of anti-intellectualism and a visceral loathing for academics holding any sort of position of public trust.
Well...to be fair, Rand was never too popular with the academy (philosophers & theologians with "sophomore appeal" all have this problem) so there is an element of tit for tat at work here. And what better way to subvert academia than by creating a faith that would unite the monied sectors of the overclass and immantenize the libertarian eschaton?
And so thus a militant atheistic founds a cult...
***
Objectivists are burdened by the lack of a homeland some sovereignty they can point to as triumph of thought turned to action, they way ye Olde Comintern could always point with pride to the USSR as a model of the coming Marxist Leninist Utopia.
On the other hand, minus the small town Baptist shamanism, Texas looms more and more as a sort of Objectivist paradise.
The Governor is a constitutionally powerless loudmouth, the state is largely controlled by corporations, lawyers and sundry shills. Politics is completely corrupted by payola, life of the street is violent despite the frequent recourse to the gallows and the whole state is polluted to an absurd degree...but then again taxes are low and education is held in low regard by almost everyone.
Sounds like "Galt's Gulch" to me....